Soil carbonate pendants: new archive of detailed climate records in the Holocene and Pleistocene

Dr. Cerling is a Distinguished Professor of two departments - Geology and Geophysics and Biology - at the University of Utah. He is a world-renowned geochemist whose work has pioneered the use of stable isotopes in carbonates as paleoenvironmental and paleoclimate indicators. His work has been instrumental in understanding the environmental context of mammalian and hominid evolution throughout the late Cenozoic. His geochemical research has also led to a better understanding of the development of the Asian monsoon system; the geochemistry of large lakes and contaminant migration in groundwater, rivers, and soils; radiometric dating of volcanic ashes; and surface exposure dating using cosmogenic isotopes. Dr. Cerling was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2010 (read his profile here) and has participated in many diverse activities that impact international policy, including serving on the United States Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, chairing a report for NAS about the impacts of black lung on coal miners, and serving on the United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime to provide guidelines for using geochemistry for wildlife forensics. He was recently awarded the Rosenblatt Prize, the highest honour given to a faculty member at the University of Utah, for lifetime research achievement and service.